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Roundup:EU Foreign Affairs Council discusses migration, security issues

Xinhua, April 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union (EU) on Monday kicked off a two-day meeting in Luxembourg, to discuss migration and security issues.

"On migration, the main outcome of our discussion was about the need to continue and even increase the focus we keep as European altogether on both routes, the Eastern Mediterranean one with an assessment of the implementation of the agreement with Turkey that we also discussed with the UNHCR," said EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini at a press conference on the sidelines of the meeting.

"It is clear that the migration policy is at the forefront of our meeting today, we will deal with the external aspects of migration," said Bert Koenders, Dutch minister for foreign affairs upon his arrival for the meeting.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said that the figures of immigration in Libya and in the central Mediterranean have not decreased over the previous year, the numbers are "still extremely important".

Moreover, EU's regional strategy for Syria and Iraq, and the threat of Daesh, also known as the Islamic State or IS, were also scheduled to be a focus of the meeting.

The council released conclusions on Libya after Monday's talks, which said that the EU strongly condemns all attempts to disrupt the stabilization of Libya and reiterates its grave concern at the growing threat of terrorism.

On the agenda of Monday's meeting, the foreign ministers were also scheduled to touch on EU's relations with the Eastern partners. They will focus on the best ways to take forward the Eastern Partnership, ahead of a ministerial meeting in May 2016.

On Tuesday, defense ministers will continue the Council meeting to discuss how to counter hybrid threats to increase the resilience of the EU and its partner countries. The debate will take place on the basis of a joint framework recently presented by the European Commission and Mogherini.

They will also cover capacity building in support of security and development and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations. Endit